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PS2 | Sports | EA Sports Arena Football

Boxart for EA Sports Arena Football
  • GRAPHICS: 3.0
  • SOUND: 2.5
  • CONTROL: 3.5
  • FUN FACTOR 2.5
  • AVG USER SCORE n/a
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 2.5

Review: Arena Football

Review by Bones | 02/07/2006 | 09:07:45 AM PST

EA's Arena Football franchise fizzles on its first down, thanks to poor presentation and bland gameplay.

It was only a matter of time. After conquering the videogame franchises of nearly every major professional sport, EA has finally made its way down the athletic ladder to the Arena Football League. As an alternative and distinctly different style of football compared to NCAA and NFL games, Arena Football is an often overlooked and under respected sport still struggling for mainstream acceptance. Unfortunately for fans of the AFL, EA's botching of the official license in this inaugural outing won't win any new fans, and will likely encourage hecklers.

Smalltime Heroes
Rather than elevating arena ball to the pro-caliber of the NFL with the same topnotch presentation quality of the hallowed Madden series, Arena Football instead looks and plays like a rushed and soggy second tier sports game. The graphics are an immediate let down (even by PS2 standards) and are only matched in their lameness by the disappointing soundtrack. Blocky character models, stiff and un-cinematic camera angles and terribly cramped and unattractive play menus give Arena Football a decidedly unappealing appearance. The sub par audio presentation also fails to impress, with the noticeable absence of any sort of play-by-play commentary and character voices that sound like they were provided pro bono by the EA custodial staff. Remarkably, Arena Football features a decent lineup of song tracks by a few major artists (like Staind and Story of the Year) that seem to only play in menus, leaving us with a sorry-ass set of watered down stock-rock riffs for our in-game tunes.

Junior Varsity
The gameplay in Arena Football is also messy and unpolished in parts. While the overall control scheme works well enough, kicking long range field goals through the notoriously tight uprights is far too simple. The limited playbook also gives the game a stale feeling and the half baked telemetry system fails to save the gameplay with largely unimportant statistical minutia delivered in eye-straining small fonts and obnoxious menus. As a two player game, Arena Football isn't much better, as the inundation of bland statistical data will likely go ignored by most players in favor of relying on a few Tecmo Bowl style plays that always seem to work.

Forfeit
Even if EA had done a respectable job of adapting the sport, the success of Arena Football still would have been uncertain, since the atypical 8-on-8 rules and fifty yard playing field can make for an understandably unpopular playing experience. If you absolutely must own Arena Football, do yourself a favor and at least wait until it inevitably fills up the discount trade-in bargain bins this winter.